Sexual Assault

Women & Infants is there for our community, providing appropriate, compassionate, comprehensive care for women who have been victims of sexual assault. Women & Infants provides the SANE Program for adult female victims of sexual assault in Rhode Island and, as the primary referral and treatment site for female survivors, each year our team in the Emergency Department cares for approximately 110 sexual assault victims. That care is provided by examiners who are specialty trained and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing compassionate and expert medical and forensic care, coordinating care with the emergency room physician when physical injuries are present. In collaboration with advocates, such as those at Day One, the SANE also provide education and resource information to victims in crisis. Additionally, Women & Infants provides the only dedicated post-assault follow-up clinic for victims in Rhode Island at our Center for Women’s Medicine, 100 Dudley Street, Providence.

As a leader in this area, Women & Infants’ Emergency Department staff is part of Rhode Island’s Statewide Task Force to Address Adult Sexual Assault, alongside other stakeholders including the Governor’s office, Day One, local colleges, the Department of Elderly Affairs, law enforcement, the Attorney General’s office, and the state laboratory. A primary charge of this task force is to address the critical need to create a consistent and standardized means for tracking sexual assault data in Rhode Island. In May 2016, the task force presented the “Sexual Assault FAQs,” a resource manual for the community.